08:40 am - Philosophy BroPhilosophy Bro is a website which briefly summarises great works of philosophy in some kind of American vernacular (basically the kind that calls men 'bro'). I have described it in the most disdainful terms, but that's just to head off your instinctive criticism, because actually I think Philosophy Bro is quite a success.

I guess it depends what you want. I like things like this. I admire the way that Philosophy Bro has captured something - enough - to indicate the issues raised and the stance taken by a range of philosophers. It has given you enough to orient yourself, so you know roughly what the philosopher is saying, and that the Emperor does have some clothes on. It is enough to know whether this is something you would like to read more about.

Other people will react strongly against it I suspect, because they will find the assumed vernacular annoying and pretentious, and the summary so simplistic as to be worthless. Which I can see how you could say it.

For further controversy here is his summary of Vindication of the Rights of Women by Mary Wollstonecraft. It is very harsh towards women. I think that's in the original: Wollstonecraft attacks what women have been made to be by the patriarchal system in which we are imprisoned. In translating these concepts into the vernacular PB uses the term 'hoes' to refer to women. I think he's forced into that by the stylistic choices he made earlier, but it's kind of wince-inducing in a man describing a key text of feminism. But then - does the blog therefore offer an implicit criticism of the vernacular in which it is written? Maybe.